Thursday, March 29, 2018

- As noted, Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano in an Unsanctioned Match has been announced for WWE NXT "Takeover: New Orleans" during WrestleMania 34 Weekend. Gargano will be banned from the brand if he loses. Triple H recently spoke with NBC Sports and was asked what the original plan for the feud was before Ciampa got hurt several months back. He said:

"So we we're still going in the same direction. The turn was happening and everything was in place, but then the injury happened. When we looked at that it was like, 'Oh my God now what?'

But sometimes the most exciting things and great art takes place out of chaos. In the chaos of that moment we looked at that and said, 'How can we make this even better?' That's one thing I've learned from Vince over the years. Anything can happen and you can do anything with it. You can never be married to an idea, or a thought, or a direction because it can change in the blink of an eye. We had the emotional intensity for this story line between the two of them, but then the injury happened and we needed to reboot. I think it's played out pretty well.

The tough part about it was trying to play out the story line of Johnny Gargano on television with the idea of knowing where you want to go, but not knowing Tommaso was going to be exactly ready to go. So you're playing, 'Where's he at now?' I certainly don't want to rush his return until he's 100 percent and I want to make sure he's healthy and can capitalize on the opportunity, but at the same point in time, I'm glued to the updates on his health so I can begin to tell the story in a direction that gets us to match the timing of his return. So far it's all worked out great and I'm excited where that story line is. To your point from an emotional story standpoint, I don't think you can compare it to the emotion of say Daniel Bryan's return at WrestleMania, but as an angle between two talents it has the most emotional feel to it heading into the weekend."

- Dean Ambrose and Renee Young have been spotted in Birmingham, Alabama this week, indicating that Ambrose is back working with WWE doctors as he rehabs the triceps tear and works towards a WWE ring return. PWInsider notes that Ambrose was seen wearing a sling around town.

Ambrose has been out of action since December and it was reported then that he would be out for 9 months, forcing him to miss WrestleMania 34. We noted last week that Ambrose was pulled from all WrestleMania Axxess appearances and replaced by WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair & Sting. Ambrose was also pulled from several World of Wheels convention appearances earlier this month.

- Dash Wilder took to Twitter today and wrote the following on The Revival's 2017 and how they will fix everything with a win in the fifth annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 34. WWE currently has Wilder, Scott Dawson, Matt Hardy, Dolph Ziggler, Baron Corbin, Mojo Rawley, Tyler Breeze, Fandango and Tye Dillinger confirmed for the match.